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Post by winhenry on Jan 6, 2007 14:03:42 GMT
About mounting without the use of mounting blocks or leg ups..... I used to be able to mount my 16.1 with no bother..... but now the mind is willing but the body can't hack it......It's the pits getting old.... And with all the years scrapes with horses I'm suprised any of us can mount unaided!!!! Goldenwood you are just a wee skinny thing it's alright for you!!!!haha Think about all us grannies!!!!
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Post by Vicky on Jan 8, 2007 11:35:36 GMT
I can get on ours without the need of a mounting block, as can my girls, but if a block is available at the trailer at a show they will use it, but certainly not in the ring - they mount from the floor the 'old fashioned' way LOL.
With babies when I'm first backing them I tend to (with the wee ponies) lift Orlando on board so that I can whisk her out of the way if one decides to go airbourne. With the bigger ponies, I tend to use a stone wall - have seen to many legs get caught in mounting blocks when babies panic.
The other reason that I do sometimes let them use blocks when mounting at shows, with the exception of in the ring, is that at shows we use our good saddles and it saves ending up with stretched stirrup leathers.
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Post by comet on Jan 15, 2007 1:06:50 GMT
How can you use a mounting block and NOT get on elegantly anyway Only time I do that is when I get my schooling whip tangles up and somehow end up sitting on it but that's not the point... Yes I do think that if you are not able to mount your 14h pony from the ground, even a HiPo, then you do need to work on your suppleness. I can get one Comet, from the ground without his saddle slipping but it's not something I like to do regularly. I prefer to use a wee mounting block in the ring as 1: my gaiters dig into the backs of my knees something awful and I can't bend my leg enough to get on from the ground and 2: the few times my groom, Ali, and I have given each other leg ups we get all un-cooordinated and try and get on at different times, not a pretty sight either
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Post by Emma! on Jan 15, 2007 3:44:40 GMT
Is learning to mount no longer an important skill that is taught ? In my pony club days you had to be able to mount from both sides, do around the world and scissors exercises and what's more vault on without a saddle, bring back the good old days. I remember those exersises. I'm 18. The other day I told my 15 year old sister to do around the world and she had no idea what I was talking about, and we learnt to ride at the same riding school. Within the three years between us starting to ride the stables had to stop doing without stirrup work even halted because of the health and safety laws. Infact in the later years of our eductation there no one was allowed to even get on the horse without someone there to hold the horse, and another to leg up (though this was partially to protect the ponies/horses backs). We were never ever taught to vault onto a pony, and the one year I was a member of the pony club my parents would have had to sign a waver if I was going to learn to vault, and not once did we do any of those exerises. Its not a lack of good riding schools but lawsuits that have taken all this away from myself, my sister and other people at riding schools.
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Post by lochlands on Jan 15, 2007 9:36:14 GMT
Yes it is a great shame H&S is eroding into so many areas of our lives, and sadly not always in a postive manner.
Actually thinking along the H&S lines, if every exhibitor went into the ring complete with their assorted mounting crates, you would begin to wonder that these things lying everywhere would become a safety hazard in themselves. A pony napping and reversing into a line of them could soon create havoc.
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Post by lesleym on Jan 15, 2007 9:39:29 GMT
Very true Lochlands I remember years ago at Central & West Fife in the small hunter class. the judge went to get on a horse, it napped reared , bounced into the next horse which sparked off a riot. There were horses kicking grooming boxes everywhere, people falling over boxes and brushes all over the place. one persons saddle was also stood on, by the 2 loose horses by that point
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